Background
The origins of the Istanbul Fire Department date back to the Ottoman era when a fire fighting force was established in 1714. Today, the Istanbul Fire Department, part of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, is responsible for firefighting, fire prevention, emergency medical services, technical rescue, maritime rescue, CBRN response and lifeguard services. The Istanbul Fire Department is the largest fire department in Turkey with 4,748 personnel, 127 fire stations and 910 vehicles.
Istanbul is the most heavily populated city in Turkey with a population approaching 20 million. To add to the challenges facing the emergency services, Turkey is in an earthquake zone, so öreöghters are at the forefront of any earthquake disaster response. To cope with these challenges, the Istanbul Fire Department needs a reliable communication system to be able to manage and coordinate an effective response to any situation or disaster.
In 2021, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality started to renew its radio system infrastructure and make it compatible with today's technology. The Istanbul Fire Department has played a leading role in the establishment of the new radio system, terminals and applications.
The Challenge
Implementing a modern, resilient digital communications radio for Istanbul Fire Department
The biggest challenge facing the Istanbul Fire Department was that it did not have a backup system to ensure öreöghters could continue operations without interruption should their primary communication system fail. Without a highly reliable, continuously available radio network, communications would be badly affected. This would hamper the effectiveness of the emergency response and potentially lead to disasters and unnecessary loss of life.
One of the biggest disadvantages of the Fire Department’s existing radio system was that it could not be interconnected with any other communication platforms. The radio system also lacked adequate security features such as end-to-end encryption services.
In addition, the radio system only supported voice services and limited data such as short messaging. It was not able to track the location of radio users via GPS services, for example, as this kind of functionality is only found in modern digital radio systems.
For these and other reasons, the Istanbul Fire Department wanted a digital communications solution they could use in daily operations. They wanted a solution that would allow öreöghters to take photos, ölm videos, make video calls, and which supported live broadcasting to and from the control room for greater situational awareness.
The Istanbul Fire Department needed to deploy modern multimode communications technology, which could deliver Istanbul-wide and nationwide radio coverage, provide value-added services, and work independently on its own resilient infrastructure in disaster scenarios such as earthquakes and øoods.
The Solution
The Istanbul Fire Department decided to implement a Hytera Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) Tier III trunking system, which is complemented by a Hytera HyTalk Pro push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) solution. The DMR trunking system comprises DS-6250 base stations and mobile switching offices (MSOs), each capable of controlling öve base stations.
The critical point here is that the DMR base stations are placed in a trailer. In this way, they are highly mobile and can be positioned at any location in the event of an incident or major disaster. This provides great øexibility and ensures coverage is available at the scene of the incident. The base station network constituents are connected with each other via a 4G modem transport network.
The most important part of this solution is that the broadband Hytera HyTalk Pro and the narrowband DMR Tier III system work together as a single system. HyTalk Pro is a PTT solution, which can be deployed on existing private/public LTE and Wi-Fi networks. HyTalk Pro helps users to protect their investment in the DMR Tier III solution by interworking with it, extending coverage beyond the DMR network and supporting broadband applications such as video.
The Fire Department also installed a Hytera SmartOne multimedia uniöed communication (MUC) dispatch platform, mobile device management (MDM), multimedia recording and playback system (MRPS) and network management system (NMS) to support rich multimedia services and applications.
On the terminals side, Hytera supplied more than 1,000 multi-mode (LTE/DMR) PDC680 handheld radios and HM78X vehicle-mounted DMR mobile radios.
The Benefits
Nationwide Coverage
The Hytalk Pro digital network platform can be deployed on private/public LTE networks including national public mobile phone networks. This massively extends coverage beyond Istanbul to include the whole of Turkey.
Unified Communications
The Hytera DMR Tier III two-way radio system and HyTalk Pro 2G/3G/4G and Wi-Fi platform are converged into a single communications system. This has helped to ensure a much stronger technological compatibility, which has enhanced the ability of the fire department to handle their daily duties.
Enhanced Operational Effectiveness
The uniöed communications solution helps users better coordinate their activities, so they can respond more effectively to major security events and natural disasters, as they can easily switch between DMR, LTE and Wi-Fi networks.
Smooth Migration
Hytera was able to solve the radio migration problem by supplying its hand portable PDC680 DMR/LTE multi-mode advanced radio. The PDC680 combines a traditional two-way radio and a cellular smartphone in one device. It can provide both mission critical voice services over DMR and broadband services such as video, and data over 4G LTE commercial mobile phone networks.
Rugged and Durable Devices
The PDC680 is IP68 rated and ESD IEC Level 4, so it can withstand water and dust ingress and electrostatic discharge. It can also withstand a 1.5- meter drop and cope with harsh environments. It supports end-to-end encryption, while AI-based noise cancellation, echo cancellation, and wind noise reduction technologies ensure firefighters beneöt from loud, clear audio even in noisy environments..
Rich Applications
The MUC supports interconnection and uniöed voice and video dispatch across multiple voice communication systems and terminals. The MRPS collects and stores all kinds of data, including audio, videos, messages, and radios' online/offline information across the dispatch work. The Smart Mobile Device Management (MDM) application network managers to remotely conögure and manage radios in either a wireless or wired mode.
The DMR and HyTalk Pro solution provided by Hytera provides the allchannel network the customer required, as well as supporting a much increased range of services, including dispatch, remote over-the-air radio programming, voice-video recordings, interconnection with, and uniöed management of, other networks and technologies.